Hand Me Down
by evilpinkpen
Summary: Jason Todd always assumed that someone would have to die to resolve his identity crisis. Fortunately for Gotham, that's all that went according to plan.


A/N: Set two years post-series. Basically, the author threw various DC media continuities in the blender to fill in details and postulate could-have-beens for Earth-16. Mm, smoothie...

* * *

**Hellbirds Part One: Hand Me Down  
**(In which a lot of things get implied without actually being explained,  
and the result is the beginning of a beautiful disaster.)

Jason Todd's second life began with a funeral.

It wasn't like he was oblivious to that little aspect of reality. If anything, he reveled in it. Wallowed in it. Exploited it as his weapon of last resort. But despite all the thought and energy he'd granted to the matter, it would take him several years and no little embarrassment to admit even to himself that the funeral which led irrevocably to his rebirth was not, in actuality, his own.

Jason Todd's second life _really _began with the funeral of Timothy Drake-Wayne.

OoO

Jason had often wondered what manner of epitaph Bruce Wayne had seen fit to saddle him with. He'd always assumed that it wouldn't impress him, and three years after his brief demise, he was grimly pleased to finally have the chance to confirm the assumption.

_Jason Todd-Wayne. Beloved Son and Brother. May he Rest in Peace._

Jason snorted and only just resisted the urge to spit on the offending words. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to recline against the granite falsehood, his arms crossed and the hood of his red sweatshirt pulled low.

From that vantage, he saw the exact moment that the approaching mourners registered his presence on the dubiously sacred ground of the Wayne family plot. There was surprise and wariness in their postures, but no recognition. Jason didn't really expect there to be. He smiled, but there was no happiness in the expression.

The wan smile didn't prevent Bruce from snapping at Jason as soon as his long stride brought him into hailing range. "This is private property. I'm going to have to insist that you leave. Immediately." He loomed like the proverbial dark angel as he spoke, and in that moment he was far more Batman than Bruce – though Jason supposed that the "grieving father" card could be pulled to excuse any number of sins and slips for the next few days. Jason wondered if Bruce was counting on that, or if he was just that mindlessly determined to shield the three young people huddled behind him from any potential threat.

Dickie-bird was one of them, of course; ashen under his gypsy tan, with eyes so red they looked bloody. Poor, heartbroken big brother, always so ready to give up and mourn. Pretty Barbara wasn't much better off, though Jason had to admit that Nightwing's girl had certainly grown into herself. _Ladybat_, they called her now. Jason had a hundred-dollar bet with no one that said the name had to have been dick-for-brain's idea.

Last but far from least, Jason regarded the new Batgirl. She was a deceptively delicate shape in Bab's shadow; a pretty slip of a girl who looked like sex and moved like death – and Jason would know, being intimately familiar with both. He had to admit that if he was wary of any of them, it was Cassandra Cain. But the Bats' pet assassin just watched him right back, pale and silent, her head tipped in what he could only interpret as curiosity. He held her gaze for a moment, bemused, before giving a mental shrug and returning his full attention to an increasingly angry Bruce Wayne.

"Afraid I'm not seeing the problem, Daddybat," Jason finally drawled, layering as much derision into the words as he could and pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. "I mean, you _did_ give me that whole disgustingly sweet lecture about how the adoption papers meant that anything you had, I had, right?" He paused to light up and take a long drag, the silence stretching taut and sharp in the crisp September air, before he pulled the cancer stick from his lips and flipped his hood back. "Or was that negated by the death certificate? I gotta admit, the legalities of it all escape me a bit." Jason offered another razor-edged smile, and received three strangled gasps in return.

"_Jason_," Dick breathed, red-rimmed eyes flying wide and one arm stretching in mute appeal, an unconscious step forward aborted only by Bruce's arm reaching out in restraint. Barbara had both hands clasped over her mouth, her eyes shining with sudden tears above them, while Cassandra's gaze flitted from person to person like a spectator at a doubles match. Bruce's face was stony.

"Who are you?" Bruce growled, and Jason tsked.

"Really, Bruce? What happened to your much-vaunted powers of observation? Or have I really changed that much?" Jason kept his tone light, but he silently acknowledged the validity of the question. The stocky fifteen-year-old they'd buried was gone in every possible way, after all. In his place was a tall, broad-shouldered man of eighteen, with shadowed eyes and several days' worth of dark stubble. He'd let the dye fade from his black hair in recent weeks, revealing the white streak at his brow, and the stretched neck of his sweatshirt exposed the knotted burn scars that crawled across his collarbones.

"Answer the question," was all Bruce said in response, refusing, as always, to rise to the taunt. Jason's eternally simmering temper boiled over in the face of that hateful calm. He found himself taking a threatening step toward the older man, fists clenched despite the fact that he actually hadn't revealed himself in hopes of a fight.

At the least, he hadn't intended to fight _today_. But words were harder to restrain than fists, and could be at least as painful. Jason found words with edges and threw them as hard as he could, disregarding the fact that they cut him as deeply as they did his target.

"And on second thought, _that_ is our problem, Bruce. _You _are our problem!" Jason snarled, struggling to keep himself from whiting out with sudden fury, the last vestiges of Lazarus madness nipping at the edges of his mind. "You! You won't _feel_. You won't _care_. You won't _break_."

Jason dragged in a ragged breath. "Goddamn you, sometimes we _need_ you to break. Four fucking kids, and you still don't get that? We need to know that you're as human as we are. We need to know that we matter enough to fucking _hurt_ you!"

Bruce blanched, taking a step back only to be caught by the shoulders by Dick and Barbara. Cassandra tucked herself against his side, finally concerned, as Bruce whispered a single word.

"Jason?"

The two syllables were so laden with hope and fear that for a long moment Jason found himself blinking dumbly, brows sky high. "Oh my God, _that's_ what it takes to convince you? _Seriously_?" Laughter choked him, furious and hysterical, as he backed slowly away from his equally bewildered "family". Finding himself with his back to a gravestone, he pressed his face against it and allowed the last echos of a truly black amusement to sink into the cold granite.

When the dark laughter released its hold on him Jason lifted his head, a scathing comment ready on his lips. Unexpectedly, he found himself biting it back when he realized that it wasn't his own gravestone that he was draped over. It was _Timothy Drake-Wayne, Dearly Loved and Dearly Missed_.

Jason trailed his fingertips over the engraved name without having had any intention of doing so. In one of the blinding and frightening mood swings that he'd been so prone to since his resurrection, his anger and hysteria drained away, leaving nothing but a creeping exhaustion in their wake. Suddenly, all that Jason wanted from this conversation was for it to be over.

"That's why I finally came back to Gotham, you know," Jason admitted. "Because I wanted to make you hurt. All of you, really. Bruce, especially. But, alas; it seems that my work here has already been done."

Dick's gaze was incredulous, his tone baffled. "But why? Why would you want to hurt Bruce, hurt any of us? We loved you, Jason!" And for Dick it really was that simple, Jason knew.

Jason himself had never been so innocent.

"Oh, I don't know. Why did little Timmy here have to become the Joker's last victim?" he responded, implacable. "Why didn't you put that rabid clown's psychotic ass down when you should have? Say, maybe after the _first _time the bastard killed someone you supposedly loved, when it might have done some actual good?"

Jason shifted his gaze from Dick's sorrow-glazed and uncomprehending eyes to Bruce's far too knowing ones. "Why didn't _you_, Bruce?" he asked, softly. Viciously.

"We don't kill. We can't..." Bruce whispered, trailing off when Jason hissed at him and sliced a hand through the air.

"You can't cross that line, blah blah blah," Jason finished, somehow finding just enough anger left to give the words a suitably harsh bite. "Because then you wouldn't have the bright glow of moral superiority to bask in, right? Tell me, does it keep you warm while the dead rot? I hope it doesn't. I hope it's cold damned comfort."

Dick made a pained sound deep in his throat, falling to his knees and taking Barbara and Cassandra with him, but Bruce stood firm. Unsupported.

"We're sworn to operate within the law, as much as possible. If we break that trust, if we kill, then we become no better than the criminals themselves. Jason, you _know_ this," Bruce said, and it was almost a plea.

Jason gave him an unimpressed look. "Do I? Because frankly, from where I'm standing?" Jason patted the headstone in emphasis. "It looks like all you did was sit back and spout platitudes, over and over again, damned well knowing that no cell would hold the Joker and no punishment would keep him from killing. _Knowing _that he would escape, again. Commit brutal murder, _again_. And oh, look," he mused, his mild tone at odds with the hate in his eyes as he patted Drake's headstone once more with mocking fondness. "_He did_."

Bruce closed his eyes and exhaled, long and slow, before opening them again and meeting Jason's accusing glare. The momentary vulnerability was gone as if it had never been when he spoke. "And now the Joker is dead," he intoned. "So what is it that you want from us, Jason?"

And Jason hesitated, actually considering the question. If you'd asked him a week or even an hour ago, he would have said that he wanted a lot of things. Revenge. Blood price, for his pain and that of others. Power, to make sure nothing similar ever happened again. But now?

Now he ran his hand over the gravestone of the "brother" he'd never met, the brother he'd hated sight unseen until five days ago, and he just felt tired.

"What do I want?" he echoed, his empty tone a match for his would-be father's. "I want the nightmares to end, Bruce. I want to go to sleep and not be afraid of waking up in a Hell of blood and laughter and flame. Or worse – of not waking up, at all." There was a shocked gasp from somewhere behind Bruce, and Jason smiled humorlessly. "I think I hoped that bringing _your_ nightmares to life would cancel mine out, somehow. But it won't, will it?" he asked. He hated himself for the wistfulness that crept into the question.

"No," Bruce said simply, though his own voice was rough-edged again. "No, it won't." And Jason nodded. They shared a look that was close to commiseration, just for a moment, before Jason shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged with calculated indifference.

"Well, in that case. I suppose that the best I can hope for is that you remember _every fucking thing_ I said today. Remember it, obsess over it, turn it over and over in your narrow minds until you're raw and bleeding inside. I'd like that." Jason paused, his mouth twisting. "I think I'd also like it if I never saw any of you again. So, in light of that..."

Jason turned his back on his now-silent audience, only pausing to smooth a hand once more over Drake's gravestone in passing. "Funny thing, though. You must have had an even lower opinion of the replacement here than you did of me, to bury him even without a body to prove it by. And that," he tossed a solemn glance over his shoulder, "That's really pretty tragic."

Jason walked away then, and no one tried to stop him.

OoO

Jason had every intention of leaving Gotham behind him that day and never coming back. He truly did. But somehow, two weeks later he found himself still haunting her alleys by night, dodging bat-shaped shadows and just... waiting. Waiting for the itch between his shoulder blades that he recognized but couldn't name to make itself known.

He was sitting in yet another shitty safe house, enveloped by the well-known but still vaguely threatening silence that marked the small hours of a Gotham morning, when the familiar-and-yet-not-familiar presence decided to perch itself on his window ledge. Marking the intruder out of the corner of his eye, Jason slowly lowered the red plastic helmet he'd been contemplating back to the surface of the room's battered card table.

"Something you wanted?" Jason asked lightly. He had two guns and three knives in reach; he could afford a little curiosity. There was a long but oddly easy silence, during which Jason could practically feel himself being measured, and then –

"You aren't really going to wear that, are you?" the shadow asked, and Jason snorted with startled amusement. The voice was low and hoarse; not a theatrical growl like the one Batman had mastered, but the ragged whisper of thoroughly wrecked vocal cords. Jason noted the fact absently as he turned to give the crouched figure his full attention.

"And if I am?" Jason was surprised to find that he was actually interested in hearing the shadow's answer.

The shadow tipped his head and regarded Jason for another moment before relaxing back against the window frame, drawing one knee up to his chest while the other heel slid down to rest with deceptive lightness on the floor. "I wish you wouldn't," he replied.

Jason raised his brows at his strange visitor. "Staying a while, are we?" he quipped, and the shadow inclined his head in response. "Well, then. By all means, do elaborate." He tipped his chair back and propped his feet on the table, ostentatiously unconcerned.

Yet another pause, this one with the definite feeling of pursed lips behind it, and then the shadow sighed. "_He_ would appreciate it too much," the shadow began, intense despite the lack of volume. "The Joker's favorite trick was to try to twist people into becoming like him. He doesn't deserve that kind of legacy. He doesn't deserve to be remembered at all." Jason's feet had slammed against the floor again at the word "Joker", every muscle tense, but his visitor kept speaking.

"And you, you deserve better. Whatever it is you've done, whatever it is you're planning to do... it doesn't condemn you to a future in a mask that... tainted. There _is_ no future in the Red Hood, Jason."

Jason gaped, for once caught completely off-balance, and answered both thoughtlessly and truthfully as a result. "I know that. But for a long time, I thought it was what I wanted anyway."

"And what do you want now, Jay?"

Jason struggled to wrest back some measure of control, over both himself and the conversation. "Are we on pet name terms already, mysterious stranger?" Jason smirked unpleasantly. "In that case, what should I call _you_, little dead Robin?"

It was a gamble, a questionably educated guess, but it paid off. The shadow – Robin the third, little not-so-dead after all Timmy Drake – threw himself to his feet. Violence seeped into the air between the younger teen and Jason for a long, fraught ten-count before Drake visibly reigned himself in.

"And then there were two," Drake quipped with forced calm, the derision clearly directed at both himself and Jason. Jason's smirk eased into a more rueful configuration as he silently granted the point, and Drake's skinny shoulders relaxed another degree in response. "And don't... don't call me Robin. I'm not. Not anymore."

For a sharp-edged moment, Jason wanted to press the fight. After all, _this_ was the kid. The one whose very existence had fanned the flames of Jason's anger into actual hate; the one who completed the triumvirate around which Jason's vengeful obsessions had revolved for so long. The one who had somehow slipped into Jason's position – both as Batman's partner and Bruce's son, and it was hard to say which hurt more – almost before Jason was cold in his theoretical grave, proving Jason so very disposable. Jason's fucking _replacement_.

Jason laughed, suddenly, angrily. And Drake's shadowed form just... jerked. As though he'd been decked and sucker punched at the same time. He practically vibrated with tension, stricken, and Jason's anger was gone as quickly as it had arrived.

He recognized that reaction. It was an unavoidable bit of PTSD when one had spent time in the Joker's tender care.

Jason turned his back on the younger teen, purposefully giving him space to collect himself, and reached over to flip the light switch. The room's lone bulb was low wattage and flickered in the bargain, but it would give him a more-or-less clear view of his visitor, finally.

"So, Timmy it is then, huh?" Jason asked, pausing to needlessly shuffle the mess on the card table.

"God, no. Just Tim." Tim sounded steady enough, even to Jason's trained ears, but his rough whisper had deteriorated even further to a bare rasp. Jason frowned, briefly, before wiping the expression away and turning to evaluate his visitor in the light.

"Sure thing, baby bird." Jason smirked before drifting forward to circle the kid. Tim huffed, clearly an exasperated denial for all its near-silence, but he allowed the maneuver.

Tim Drake was just as short and skinny as his pictures had suggested, Jason decided. The muscle mass that Jason knew the kid had to have, given his training, was lean enough to be well hidden by his uniform. Any deformations or injuries that the Joker might have left him with were hidden, as well. Given the changes that had been made to said uniform, Jason couldn't quite find it in himself to be reassured.

The kid was right. He wasn't a Robin, not in this. Oh, Jason could still see that basic lines of the Robin costume well enough. Bits and pieces of his and Dick's versions of it, as well as Tim's own. But they'd been darkened and pared down into something that wasn't, that could never be, Robin.

The cape was missing. Strangely, that was the first thing that Jason noticed. The ankle boots and gloves had been traded for proper combat boots and gauntlets, and the otherwise familiar utility belt was done in unfamiliar black. All were sleek, all unembellished. The red Kevlar tunic vanished into a pair of slim-cut green cargo pants instead of the familiar tights, both colors deepened into shades of burgundy and hunter that had been indistinguishable from all the black in lower light. The skin that should have been exposed by the tunic's short sleeves was instead covered by under armor in the same shade of green, and the undertunic's attached hood was pushed back just enough to reveal that the domino had been replaced by a full-coverage black cowl.

Jason's initial thought was that it was an exceedingly efficient costume. Maximum storage, minimum vulnerabilities. No exposed skin, nothing extraneous to be grabbed, snagged, or otherwise exploited. As much armor as could be integrated without sacrificing mobility.

It was a uniform built for survival. Despite his reservations, Jason found that he approved, and he hummed thoughtfully. "No, definitely not a Robin," he allowed, meeting Tim's eyes through the white lenses of his mask. "So just what are you these days, baby bird?"

Tim snorted softly. "Me? I'm just a storm crow. Croaking out warnings that no one bothers to hear," he muttered. Jason lifted a brow and started to reply to that unexpected bit of cynicism, but he was derailed when his eyes snagged on the one piece of embellishment Tim's uniform had retained.

The round insignia at the upper left of the tunic was, unsurprisingly, no longer the stylized R of the Robins. The falcon's head in silhouette, dull bronze embossed on black, was nonetheless familiar to Jason. He'd worn it before, briefly, when one of his adventures during his own short-lived time with the Team had taken him into a strange, dark otherworld. He'd discarded the temporary costume and its insignia immediately upon his return, convinced that he wanted no reminder of what had seemed at the time to be one of the worst experiences of his life – a small taste of Hell.

Of course – in retrospect – at the time he'd also been a naïve little prick for all his supposed street-smarts, and that taste of Hell hadn't even been an appetizer for the real deal. If anything, thinking about it now practically made him feel nostalgic. Still, Jason couldn't resist the urge to reach out and poke at the patch, giving Tim an incredulous look as he did so.

"Seriously, kid? You haven't had enough of my hand-me-downs already?"

Tim's posture shifted into something more assertive than it had been since before Jason turned the light on. "You want it back? Then take it back," was all he said, though – part dare, part plea, and all manipulation.

Jason grinned to keep himself from laughing again. "Get lost, Tim," he ordered. And with a final shrug, Tim did. Jason watched him go, unsurprised to discover that he lost track of the kid almost immediately. Tiny and traumatized he might be, but the little bird struck Jason as the sneaky type.

Sneaky... but not necessarily wrong.

"Some of us actually _can_ take a hint, Stormy," he murmured. He lifted the red mask from the table once more and regarded it for a long moment, before reaching through the window to drop it into the open dumpster in the alley below.

He turned the light back off and called it a night, but he never actually managed to sleep.

OoO

It was over two weeks before Jason saw Tim again. Half of that time was spent in uniform, as Jason reacquainted himself with the rhythms and rhymes of a patrol beat. Oh, he felt the kid's eyes on him often enough; and Jason was frankly rather disturbed by how familiar that sensation was. But it was seventeen days before he _saw_ Tim again.

When he did, the kid was mid-throwdown with a burly drug dealer and his even bigger enforcer, and Jason perched on a fire escape to watch the show. Word was that the latest Robin had been one hell of a staff fighter, and not just for his age and size. Though Jason really couldn't judge from such a short fight, even a couple of strikes made it clear that the kid was pulling most of his moves to avoid crippling his relatively hapless opponents.

Jason was momentarily concerned that Tim had pulled his last strike a little _too _much to effectively take out his much bigger assailant. Then the dealer dropped like a felled oak, and Jason belatedly noticed the white crackle of electricity crawling down the tip of the staff. Jason lifted an eyebrow under his mask and whistled, drawing the kid's attention.

"Nice one, Stormy," he drawled, even as he hopped back up to the roof. He assumed that Tim would follow and, wonder of wonders, the younger teen did.

"Stormy?" Tim asked, when they were both out of sight of the street. The word was pronounced in the same hoarse whisper as last time, and Jason realized with a sympathetic internal wince that the condition of the kid's voice was quite possibly permanent. He forced himself to shrug nonchalantly.

"Just a little storm crow, remember?" Jason teased. "And look – lightening and everything!" Jason waved a gesture toward the now-inert weapon.

The staff was almost as tall as Tim, and the kid leaned his slight weight on it, tipping his head in what Jason was already tagging as a habitual gesture. "I suppose you have me there," he admitted, and Jason felt that measuring gaze dragging over him again. Jason just planted a hand on his hip and invited the evaluation, frankly pleased with the results of his latest endeavor in vigilante fashion design.

He'd stolen Tim's concept for the cargoes and would make no apologies for it, since the slim black pants tucked perfectly into his own pair of combat boots. The black utility belt, too – yellow never was Jason's color. His red Kevlar tunic was crimson, though, bright and unforgiving; his own full cowl was the same shade. He felt Tim's gaze snag on that detail before moving on, presumably with the decision to reserve judgment.

Jason wore his shoulder and thigh holsters proudly, the straps black against the red of his tunic and red against the black pants. Their crossing point in the center of his chest was marked by a simple brass medallion – the falcon's head in silhouette, a twin to the one on Tim's own chest. A black leather jacket and gloves completed the ensemble, shrouding the red into something a little more shadow-friendly.

Tim completed the second pass of his perusal and returned his regard to the vicinity of Jason's face. "So, who are you trick-or-treating as?" he asked, carefully neutral. Jason hummed in response.

"Oh, I don't know," he said. "I kind of like the sound of 'Redjay,' though. What do you think, Stormy?"

Any indication of Tim's expression was completely lost between the hood, the cowl, and the shadows, but Jason detected a definite suggestion of a smile in his voice. "I guess it'll have to do, if that's the best you've got."

Tim then planted the butt of his staff on the rooftop only to vault over the side and vanish again, leaving Jason alone but feeling unaccountably satisfied with himself.

"Goodnight to you, too, kid," he quipped to the empty air, before turning away to find his own trouble for the evening.

OoO

Jason was on the same rooftop, another week on, when he felt that familiar regard settle over him. "I know you're there, Stormy," he called, finding himself not displeased with the thought of Tim's company.

Tim stepped out of the shadows, his arms crossed. "You say that like I was hiding," he muttered. Jason ignored him and kept talking.

"You have a disproportionately heavy gaze for someone of your age and size. You realize that, right?" Jason asked rhetorically. "It's frankly rather disturbing. In fact, this whole stalker mystique you've got going on?" he continued, waving an all-encompassing hand at Tim, "Disturbing, kiddo. Extremely."

"Oh, I don't know, Jay," Tim demurred, smile audible in his rough voice again. "I think it might just be you. You always were better than the others at sensing when I was around, back when you were Robin. It might be an idiosyncratic hypersensitivity."

"There was an insult somewhere in there, wasn't there?" Jason mused, and Tim snorted softly in response. Then the rest of the statement sunk in. "Wait, what? What do you mean, _when I was Robin_?"

"I used to follow you around, back in your pixie boot days. Your predecessor, too, after his first year or so in the cape. His identity was the first one I figured out. I even followed Batman from time to time. He was a lot more boring, though." All of this was stated quite matter-of-factually, as though Tim had no idea that Jason's concept of reality was crashing around his ears and painfully reconstructing itself.

Jason wasn't fooled, though. The little prick knew exactly what he was doing and was secretly enjoying the hell out of it, Jason just knew it. And he _would_ exact revenge. As soon as he felt less lightheaded.

"You used to... follow us," Jason repeated blankly. "You knew our identities. And you never got caught?"

"Of course not." Tim sounded amused by the thought. "How did you think I got the job? It's not like there are that many things a thirteen-year-old could put on his resume that would impress the Batman."

"I've gotta admit, I wondered about that. Extensively," Jason admitted. "But I can't say that particular possibility ever occurred to me. You actually stalked us? Seriously?"

"Yes." Tim somehow drawled the word into three syllables, sounding almost as bemused as Jason felt.

"And you never... _Seriously_?" Jason repeated. Tim was regarding him with head-tipped consideration again.

"Do you think you maybe need to sit down, Jay?" he asked. Jason found himself nodding in agreement.

"Yeah. Yeah, I think maybe I do." He let his legs fold under him where he stood and cradled his head in his hands, silently coming to two conclusions.

First off, it was now obvious to him that sweet little Timmy was dangerous and crazy in ways that had nothing to do with Bat-training and PTSD. And Jason was oddly okay with that. Mostly because, well, second off.

Second off was that – good sense and even better motives be damned – Jason found that the kid was growing on him. A lot.

"You," Jason declared, lifting his head and leveling an index finger at Tim's face, "are absolutely insane." It probably would have sounded more insulting if Jason hadn't been grinning madly behind the mask. As it was, Tim just huffed a soft, amused sound and patted Jason on the head.

"Let me know when you've pulled yourself together," Tim advised, and Jason lounged back on his hands to stare up at him with suspicion.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because there's a gang battle brewing three blocks over, and I thought that you might want to help me crash it," Tim replied. Jason grinned even wider as he leapt to his feet.

"Kiddo, I do believe that you just said the magic words." Jason pulled out one of his pistols and checked the clip, then nodded decisively. "Let's hit it."

"Rubber bullets?" Tim asked as they moved to the edge of the roof. Jason nodded again.

"I'm trying to stay under Daddybat's radar, for the moment," he admitted with a grimace. "So, as satisfying as tearing a bloody swath through the Gotham underworld sounds, I decided that mayhem would probably be counterproductive."

"Sensible," Tim noted. Jason barked a sharp laugh, too brief to make the kid twitchy.

"You'd be the first one to make that accusation, Stormy," he said. They exchanged invisible grins, then grappled and swung in tandem.

There was indeed a gang battle three blocks away; one that was just pitching itself to bloodshed as they arrived. Tim didn't even try to speak over the chaos, instead relying on gestures, basic ASL, and the Bats' own unique battlefield signage. Jason didn't find it difficult to adapt; in fact, it was probably the smoothest partnered brawl he'd ever participated in – or at least, it was until one of the gang leaders decided that stupidity was the better part of valor.

"You fuckers don't know who you messin' with!" the weedy man shrieked. "I'm Big Dwayne! Ain't nobody mess with Big Dwayne and live!"

"...Is this guy for real?" Jason asked after an incredulous moment. Tim just shrugged before judo-throwing a gangbanger who'd tried to grab him from behind face-first into Jason's fist. Jason knocked the man aside and shook his head in disbelief. "Honestly. Do you want to deal with him?" Tim made a breezy _go ahead_ gesture that quickly transformed into a fierce left hook, and Jason felt his smile go feral. "You're far too kind. Don't mind if I do, though." With that, he spun on the gang leader, grabbed a double fistful of the man's jacket, and slammed him into the alley wall.

"Hi there, Big Dwayne," Jason said pleasantly. "I'm Redjay, and my pal over there is Stormcrow." Tim waved before throwing another punch. "Nice fight you've got going on here. We really appreciated the invite."

"Kill both you motherfuckers!" Big Dwayne squealed in panic, spittle flying. "Send you both to Hell!" Jason's face went still and hard behind the mask at those words, and the gang leader froze, proving that he wasn't completely devoid of survival instincts after all.

"That's an awfully sweet offer to make, Big D," Jason said, with the kind of calm that was patently homicidal. "But you see, Stormy and me? We've already _been_ to Hell. And guess what?" Jason lowered his face so that he and the 'banger were practically nose-to-nose. "We brought a little bit of it back with us, just for stupid fuckers like you."

Big Dwayne then proceeded to piss himself, and Jason did him the service of knocking him out cold before he could embarrass himself even further.

By that point, the brawl was over; every gang member who hadn't been smart enough to flee was either unconscious or cowering. _Okay_? Tim signed, and Jason rolled his shoulders in an attempt to shake off both the adrenaline rush and the white-hot echoes of his momentary fury.

"Yeah, I'm good. You?" Jason asked. Tim gave him a jaunty salute before turning and firing off his grapple. Jason didn't even try to track him; he knew that he wouldn't see the kid again that night. He headed in the opposite direction instead, seeking a friendly roof on which to light a cigarette and enjoy the afterglow of a good fight.

He'd see Tim again soon. He was sure of it, now.

OoO

Soon, in their particular case, turned out to be the next day. And the day after that, and so on and so forth, until Tim had sought Jason out for at least a couple of hours every night for a solid week excepting Tuesday. (And as for Tuesday, well. Suffice it to say that when Wednesday rolled around, absolutely nothing in the way Tim held himself encouraged Jason to ask about Tuesday. So Jason spent several productive hours pointing the kid at fun things to hit, instead.)

But anyway. Forget Tuesday. Jason was counting it a solid week spent in each other's company without either of them actively attempting to kill the other, which officially made his relationship with Tim the most successful interaction that Jason had participated in since his resurrection.

He was cheerfully pointing this fact out to Tim – the Stormcrow silent as he always was in front of others but conscientious about indicating his continued attention – as the two of them zip-tied a pair of now thoroughly battered would-be rapists near Crime Alley. He broke off mid-sentence at the sound of approaching footsteps, though, and they both stood up just in time to come face-to-face with the uniformed officer who chose that moment to round the corner and give the entire scene a profoundly unimpressed look.

"Evening, Officer," Jason offered after a moment, aiming for charming and doing a half-decent job of hitting it. "Lovely night for a stroll, amiright?"

There was another moment of silence, during which the officer transferred her unimpressed look to Jason, before Tim reached over and smacked Jason upside the head.

Jason twitched and gave his partner an incredulous glare. "Dude! _Seriously_?" he whined. The officer smothered an amused snort, shaking her head at the two of them.

"So, I'm going to assume that you guys are the new vigilantes that everyone and their granny is pretending not to talk about. The Hellbirds, right?" she questioned blandly.

Jason hadn't heard the moniker yet, but he liked it immediately. Nonetheless... "That depends. What do we get for saying yes?" he asked, more than a little wary.

"You get a strongly-worded suggestion to clear out before I'm obligated to try to arrest your asses," the officer said. But, seeing as she was doing a poor job of pretending to hide her smirk, Jason couldn't say that he felt threatened. At all. In fact, he felt inclined to sweep the woman a rather florid bow.

"Anything for an officer of the law, ma'am," he began; at which point, Tim collared him and began dragging him to the nearest fire escape, directing a respectful nod toward the officer as they passed.

"Much obliged," she replied, no longer even trying to disguise her amusement.

Jason cussed Tim out all the way to the roof. "...because, _boundaries_, Stormy. We obviously need to discuss them!"

Tim just watched him, head tilted, then reached out and cuffed him on the shoulder. "Tag, Jay. You're it."

Tim was swinging before the last word had even left his mouth, and Jason cursed and scrambled after. He knew that the kid was pacing himself, though, since Jason actually _could_ follow him.

Jason would be the first to admit that he wasn't the best flier in the family. He didn't thrill at the sensation of air embracing him the way the others often seemed to. It didn't, would never, feel natural to him. Jason liked the jarring impact of asphalt and shingle under his boots; he figured he'd always prefer the alleyways and rooftops to the grapple lines.

Still, Tim was somehow right. Being acknowledged, being _named_ – having someone other than his fellow exile appreciate his life and what he'd chosen to do with it – to Jason, it felt an awful lot like flying. Exhilarating, a little overwhelming. A touch threatening. But, mostly?

The world's biggest rush. Bar _nothing_.

Jason wondered if Tim had merely guessed, or if he felt it, too. Someday, maybe he would ask.

For now, though, they had tumbled into a two-person heap on a dark rooftop deep in the business district, breathless but still giddy. Pressed back-to-back with Tim, Jason only managed to restrain the laughter that kept trying to escape his throat by raising his voice in an ecstatic cheer instead. He knew that his smile was just the wrong side of manic. He really couldn't care less.

"How about that, little brother? We might just pull off this hero gig, after all!" Jason crowed. Tim didn't respond out loud – quite possibly he couldn't, was too breathless to take command of his damaged voice – but he pressed his back even more firmly against Jason's, tilting his head backward to rest against Jason's neck.

That small but solid warmth, pressed steadfastly between Jason's back and whatever lay in wait in the night, was a more convincing promise than any words Jason had ever heard.

* * *

This is my first DCU fic, and yep, I'm nervous. Let me know if you'd like to read more in this 'verse? Because I'm distressingly sure that there's more just waiting to pounce, lol.


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